‘This has been the toughest decision of my life and one which both me and my family have agonised over for a good deal of time.”
Considering that the decision Steven Gerrard is talking about is one which will enable him to earn €8 million a year looking like a superstar in the midfields of Major League Soccer – maybe even living in the millionaires' paradise of LA and winning the US title alongside his old team-mate Robbie Keane – why does he sound so sad?
Because he’s Steven Gerrard, and his unerring ability to see the unhappy side of every situation is as much an essential part of his Steven Gerrardness as the 50-yard diagonal passes he must have hit more of than any other player in Liverpool’s history.
Think back to last summer, when Gerrard captained the doomed England World Cup squad in Brazil. Defeat in their first match meant they needed a result against Uruguay to stay alive. Gerrard decided the time had come to give his team-mates a captain’s pep talk.
Later, he told the papers what he’d said: “It could be a terrible long, frustrating summer if we don’t get it right [against Uruguay]. There is no hiding place . . . It can be tough as a player and it can take an awful long time to get over it. A lot of people know that in the dressing room but a few young lads – it was important for them to realise what is at stake and how important this game is. If a defeat was to happen it is probably the most difficult place to be in as a footballer.”
It’s not surprising that Steven Gerrard thought it would be a good idea to gather his team-mates and make them listen to his ruminations on the horrors of defeat. He’s always had the habit of dwelling in advance on the worst that might happen. In the 2006 World Cup quarter-final against Portugal, Gerrard says in extra time, his “head was pounding” because he was already obsessing about having to take a penalty in the shootout. In the end, having spent 40 minutes worrying about the possibility of missing the penalty . . . he missed the penalty.
Last month he took the opportunity to gee up his Liverpool team-mates ahead of the match against Arsenal. “Everyone knows if we perform the way we have done of late against Arsenal, we’ll get beaten,” Gerrard predicted.
Fitting climax
The year 2014 provided a fitting climax to the 16-year melodrama of Gerrard’s career. He played well enough to be nominated for PFA Player of the Year in a Liverpool team that won 11 league matches in a row. He scored twice as Liverpool dominated Manchester United at Old Trafford more thoroughly than they had ever done before in his career. He was the captain who gathered his euphoric team-mates together in a huddle seconds after the whistle went on Liverpool’s 3-2 victory against Manchester City, when every one of the 45,000 at Anfield believed the long wait for the title was about to end.
And two weeks later, everyone was to realise that the very words of his exhortation, “This doesn’t fucking slip now! This does not slip!” had gruesomely foreshadowed his own fatal, dream-killing mistake.
Brendan Rodgers said after the defeat to Chelsea: "there is no blame." But nothing Rodgers said could ease Gerrard's shame. He couldn't face going to the PFA awards dinner, which was on later that Sunday. Luis Suárez came closest to a realistic assessment of how Gerrard must have felt, remarking in his autobiography that "if I had been in Stevie's shoes, I don't know if I would have been able to carry on playing."
Turned to ashes
Gerrard carried on, but since that moment, everything he’s touched has turned to ashes. Uruguay knocked England out of the World Cup. Less well-remembered than Suarez’s winning goal, laid on for him by Gerrard’s misplaced header, was the contemptuous ease with which he shouldered Gerrard to the floor in the first half – the sort of moment that wouldn’t have happened 10 years ago.
Liverpool’s instant reversion to mediocrity was encapsulated by their 3-0 beating at Old Trafford, with Gerrard an irrelevant bystander in midfield. Then came that conversation with Brendan Rodgers, in which the coach explained that Gerrard was no longer a guaranteed starter.
Alex Ferguson once had the same sort of conversation with Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes, but while they understood that the pay-off for accepting a reduced role would be that they would probably end the season with another Premier League winners' medal, the prospect of sitting on the bench watching Lucas Leiva and Joe Allen understandably held less attraction for Gerrard. It was time to go.
Given Gerrard’s pessimistic inclination, he probably looks back on 2014 as his worst year in football. Some day, he might come to see that he packed more triumph and disaster into that 12 months than most footballers get to experience in their whole career. He never had the fulfilment a league title medal might have brought. But in emotional terms at least, he did it all.
